Three further items from Zoharum which arrived 25 October 2024.
While this Zoharum label likes to promote Polish talent, it’s not so insular as to exclude other European talents from its roster…such a one is b°tong, a new name to me, but the solo genius behind it Chris Sigdell of Switzerland has been active under this name since 2005 and notched up 30 albums in that time. Sigdell also used to be in NID and Leaden Fumes, the latter a famed Swiss doom-sludge band who grew out of the earlier band Phased, one of the original stone-core groups of that Alpine region. Actually Sigdell is a 1980s veteran with an impressive pedigree. On today’s item Mass (ZOHAR 326-2) – sometimes printed in curly brackets – he presents a double-disc helping of incredibly atmospheric, ultra-layered drone, somehow managing to evoke infinite stretches of time and space with his delicate, but well-constructed, music. Where mediocre droners dream of glimpsing “the beyond”, they can produce suffocating and flat results with their unimaginative settings, but b°tong is the real deal. There may be guitars, vocals, synths, samples and field recordings buried in these scaperings, but one isn’t concerned to disentangle the harmonious blends, rather to wander lost inside them for the next few decades. I’d like to say that the title Mass implies a holy rite from a lost Eastern European strain of extreme Catholicism, but the underpinning meanings to this work are far from clear-cut; there are some simple contrasting images, such as the Goddess of Light telling us “Behold the Sky is Black”, and a fleeting reference to heavenly signs, but our man remains gnostic and unknowable in his intentions. “Together they form a coherent whole”, so the label informs us about these two sessions recorded one year apart, and also indicate that a story is being told across the two discs. If they are right, it’s a very slow-moving epic, but a compelling one.
Ulesa sailed across the Baltic sea in 2021 with their debut, a not-unlikeable set of loops and voices swaddled in the usual ambient blacktiude that this label relishes so much. We noted their mysterious non-identity and no-title strategy back then, which continues with their second offering, except we now learn Ulesa are a mystery trio and the vocalist (on today’s record at any rate) is Ania Grąbczewska from Szklane Oczy, the under-performing coldwave rock group from Poland. The music on II (ZOHAR 331-2) is shrouded in fogs and soft edges, with even the percussive beats muffled by these heavy grey clouds, but that makes a change to being slammed in the ribcage by the beats of Larmo and others of that ilk. It’s nice when a trumpet or voice suddenly emerges from the murk to greet you in the morning air.
Brume here with Synchronicity & Wandering Current (ZOHAR 338-2). Myself, I never really went overboard for this French solo act by Christian Renou, although he’s well regarded and has smothered all of Europe with cassette releases since 1985 or earlier. Operating somewhere to the left of industrial hideosity and an update on classic musique concrète, Brume has managed to hammer out his own railway through the untamed territories of abstract sound. In my ignorance I thought he’d retired or otherwise given up long ago, and was half-expecting a long and stern droning episode on this single-track 57:54 minute item. Instead it turns out to be a very inventive and imaginative sound collage thing. The source materials are fascinating and odd and very surprising, and evidently assembled with tremendous care. The suite divides into three named ‘chapters’, and one can credit the idea that a layered narrative is being assembled, albeit one more informed by Burroughs and Beckett than by John Grisham. That comparison may suggest a tendency towards absurdity or mind-scrambling nonsense, but we’re very far away from Bladder Flask’s ultra-random cutup technique here. Amazingly, Hastings Of Malawi (who’s been enjoying a purple patch of creativity lately) is a contributor, adding voice and electronic sounds; there’s also Pat’ Blanch and Patrick Mazaltarim on saxophone, whose toots occasionally lift us out of crazy-sampling tape-edit genius into a free improv region. As for the cover art! Well, those nudes come from the scrap-books of Françoise Duvivier, who also makes dolls and masks, and has done quite a few covers for Brume over the years. Excellent release.